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18pxPreface.
It happened after working time. I was on my way home. Switched on the car radio to check whether it was
still working. There was often a problem with that lately. Because of all kinds of unexpected fault messages
on the dashboard. Modern cars have all kinds of control systems that let you know (at the most impossible
moments) that a defect has been found somewhere else in the system. Can of course be very useful. For
example if a part of the lighting fails. You are thus warned of all kinds of malfunctions. An additional
disadvantage, on the other hand, was that when there was a warning about a malfunction in the electronics
of the gearbox, the radio no longer worked. But this one time there was nothing to report. At least as
far as the failures in car electronics were concerned. After switching on the (this time) flawlessly operating
radio, a completely different interference was reported. So it had nothing to do with the car electronics,
but with a much, much more serious problem. Because immediately after turning on the car radio, I heard
a voice announcing the news that a researcher had done research into, what shall I call, “religious
awareness” of the “higher educated” in the Netherlands. What I have to understand by “higher
educated” is (for me at least) still shrouded in mists but nevertheless I have the very strong impression
that those so-called higher educated have so wonderfully taken on themselves and their knowledge that
they something like a god no longer need. They see that as just a Medieval fantasy of a couple of superstitious
poor guys who really didn't know any better at the time. No, apparently we are much better off nowadays.
Because in the meantime “science” (whatever that may be) is so much farther that we can safely
leave those old-fashioned ideas behind, as I was told by that presenter through my car radio.
“L' histoire se répète” (history repeats itself) as the French say. Or as the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 1:9: “There is nothing new under the sun.” During the second world war ('40-'45), which both my parents consciously experienced during their childhood, they witnessed it that the churches in the Netherlands were packed. Not as a result of all kinds of medieval fantasies. Oh no, the awareness of the existence of the Supreme God was clearly present. That was no different for the ancient people of Israël. And that is why the people were blessed by God. Until.... they had been doing so well for years that, barely one generation further, they thought they could harvest it themselves again. Or in the meantime some idols from neighboring peoples were on loan who could do the job as well. At least, that was apparently the usual reasoning at the time .
This apostasy repeated itself many, many times. And why? It was precisely in times when the people lived in obedience to God that they were blessed and had no reason to complain. And just then the misery began again, the idols were again pulled off the board and dusted, the altars in honor of these fake gods were nailed together again. Child sacrifices were made again. You can count on it that those child sacrifices were probably not only made in times of need, as is sometimes assumed. Various other atrocities were also committed in honor of their home-made “gods”. Among other things, those child sacrifices to the Ammonite idol Moloch were an abomination in God's eyes. A metal statue of this idol was warmed up in fire and very young babies were placed on the red-hot outstretched arms of this statue with an obvious outcome. Do you see your children writhing in pain on the hands of that statue? Great, I'm glad I didn't have such parents! Is it still strange that the supreme God had to look at these atrocities with aversion and then ignited in anger against this corrupt people, for so much of this cursed cruelty? No, that's not strange. Already during the exodus from Egypt and the journey through the desert that followed, apostasy was their trademark. We can read Gods answer to that in Exodus 33:5: “You are a stubborn people. If I should go up in your midst even for a moment, I would destroy you.” That is why an angel of the Lord was allowed to do the job. As a substitute. In that cloud that went out before the people. Nevertheless, time and time again the Israëlites were given the opportunity to repent of their sins. The result? We find that in 2 Chronicles 36:15-16: “The Lord God of their fathers sent his messengers to them early and late, for He had mercy on His people and His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scorned His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people so much that recovery was no longer possible.” But what was their occupation? Well, among other things this: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose to dance” as we can read in 1 Corinthians 10:7.
I was once standing on a balcony during a staff outing of the company for which I was working at the time, looking down at the dancing colleagues on the dance floor below. While the “music” was so deafening that people could not understand each other. Normal mutual contact was impossible. Watching this utterly ridiculous scene I felt for a moment what it was for our Creator to have to see the hopping crowd in the days of the ancient people of Israël. There was clearly time for this kind of pastime. But what was their reaction when God himself contacted His people? This: remove the Holy God of Israël away from our eyes.
This depraved apostasy is the drama of a people who received preferential treatment from God in the years prior to the birth of Jesus but never showed that it was worthy of this preferential position. On the contrary, Jeremiah 2:32-33 expresses the grief and disappointment of the Creator: “Will a girl forget her outfit, a bride her belt? But my people have forgotten Me, countless days. How well did you find your way to find lovers! That is why you have used your ways to evil.” We are now witnessing this same apostasy in our own country (The Netherlands) in our days. After the Germans were kicked out of our country in the mid-1940s and people could walk freely again without (in extreme cases) being picked up by the Gestapo, they soon got used to this “freedom” again. The economy and prosperity also experienced enormous growth. And did those full churches run empty again.... Because people no longer had any sense of God? No! Not without reason I chose the domain name for this (my second) website: gelovendoenweallemaal.nl (we all believe.nl) because everywhere around me I found the proof of that created knowledge concerning the supreme God.
The prophet Jeremiah and various fellow prophets also had a hard time in their days. The Old Testament
is therefore full of exhortations to the ancient people of Israël because of their stubborn resistance
to the only true God. A short search in the book of Jeremiah alone yields eleven texts in which the hypocritical
people are rebuked. For example in Jeremiah 7:23-26: “But I have given
this commandment unto them, Hear ye my voice, then I will be to you a God, and you shall be to me as a
people, and walk all the way that I command you, that it may be unto you well. But they did not hear,
nor bowed their ears, but they walked to the hardened deliberations of their evil hearts, and turned backwards
and not forwards, from the day that your fathers went out of the land of Egypt to this day. I also sent
to you all my servants the prophets daily, early and late. But they did not listen to me, nor bowed their
ears, but showed themselves more stubbornly than their fathers.” With these sad words,
the Jewish people were called to account. In the following verse, however, it is turn of the Gentiles
to be rebuked.
We read in Psalms 53:3-5: “God looks down from heaven on the children
of men, to see if there is a wise one, one who is seeking God. All have deviated, degenerated together,
there is nobody doing good, not even one. Have they not knowledge, those who commit iniquity, who eat
my people, as if they ate bread? They do not call upon God.” God still looks down from heaven.
And still He must determine that His Creation thinks people should be concerned with anything and everything....
as long as it is not about our Creator.
It becomes annoying but also seventy years after the people were taken to Babylon, so after returning from exile, the people of Israël continued on the same footing. However, the good God continued to interfere with the people. As He told Elijah the prophet many years before in 1 Kings 19:18: “I will leave in Israël seven thousand, all the knees that did not bow down to the Baal, and every mouth that did not kiss him.” In Elijah's time there remained a remainder of the people who remained obedient to the Creator of heaven and earth. And around the announcement of Jesus' birth, Mary, the (then future) mother of Jesus, also belonged to the rest of the people. So that the Creator of heaven and earth could be born as a human being from a righteous woman, who, also in raising the baby Jesus, in awe of the holy God, could give him a just education as a human being. The way He wanted it: to be raised by righteous, God-fearing (foster) parents. For among other things, He had set this people apart from all other nations. However, once an adult Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the days of this preferential treatment were almost over. In John 4:21-24 He told her: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming, that you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews; but the hour is coming and is now that the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth; for the Father seeks such worshipers; God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” Notice that Jesus said here, “we worship what we know” with which he referred to the knowledge of the supreme God, a knowledge that was indeed present among the Jewish people. Incidentally, it was those true worshipers who had been promised Him by the Father. And who would not come exclusively from the Jewish people but also from the Gentile nations. Something that our Creator had in mind since the fall of men. A new time would come, the time that the Kingdom of God would be re-established on earth. Moreover, that Kingdom is worldwide and is therefore not limited to a little piece of land nearby the Mediterranean Sea....
To the devout Jews who thought they could claim special rights because they were descendants of Abraham, John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:9: “Do not imagine that you can say to yourself: We have Abraham as father, for I tell you that God is able to raise Abraham children from these stones.” In other words: the fact that you are descended from Abraham has no value at all to God. And it gives you hypocrites absolutely no special rights! Because God could just as easily have chosen to raise Abraham's descendants from these stones! In Romans 2:28-29 the apostle Paul put it as follows: “For he is not a Jew who is the appearance, and it is not circumcision that is done externally in the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and the (true) circumcision is that of the heart, after the Spirit, not after the letter. Then his praise does not come from people, but from God.” Although the people of Israël had received God's Words and put them in writing, it does not have a privileged position in the Kingdom of God. And never will. Despite the “Israël-hype” that rages through the spiritually blind “Christianity” in our days. During His life as a man, Jesus has re-established the Kingdom of God on earth. Whoever wants to be a resident of that Kingdom will not be a resident because of his natural (Jewish) origin but will only gain access to eternal life through conversion and rebirth. That was already made clear by Jesus to the devout Jew Nicodemus. This man belonged to the superior of the Jews, so he was certainly not a little boy. Nevertheless, this learned Jew did not understand what Jesus explained to him about being born again. We find that in John 3:10: “Jesus answered and said to him, You are the teacher of Israël, and do you not understand these things??” Nicodemus and his people belonged to the old covenant. For the Kingdom of God a whole new ticket is needed. That ticket is Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, about the stubborn, abandoned people of Israël, the apostle Paul later wrote in Galatians 4:25-26: “The (word) Hagar means Mount Sinai in Arabia. It is on a the same level as present-day Jerusalem, because that is with its children in slavery. But heavenly Jerusalem is free; and that is our mother.” That present-day Jerusalem about which the apostle Paul wrote was given up by God to spiritual slavery. Jerusalem, abandoned by God, who had meanwhile invented his own hostile religion. That stubborn and unbelieving Jerusalem that Jesus once said in Matthew 23:37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets , and stones those who are sent to you, how often have I wanted to gather your children, as one hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you will not.” Speaking in the temple, Jesus also exposed the hostility of the Jews to the message of His gospel and their disobedience to God. Among others in John 7: 19-20 we find this: “Didn't Moses give you the law? And none of you do the law. What are you trying to kill me for? The crowd answered: You are possessed; who is trying to kill you?” Yes, good question: who actually tried to kill Jesus? History has already taught us that. It was not the Romans who condemned Jesus to the death on the cross. As the Bible says, Pontius Pilate even tried to save Jesus from the cross. So who finally tried to kill Jesus? Those were the enemy Jews, who were a willing ally of Satan. And of whom I once read in an extra-biblical source that Satan and his evil angels had driven them to such anger that even the hardened Pilate was stunned by their anger. A rage that Pilate had not experienced even during the popular uprising in Rome. Of this seething crowd in Jerusalem, he even noticed that it seemed that their feet did not even touch the ground..... Hence, with (at that time) only 100 Roman soldiers at his disposal, he finally gave the seething Jews their way. The same hostile Jews to whom the apostle Stephen later said, shortly before his death in Acts 7:51-53: “You stubborn and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; like your fathers, so do you. Which of the prophets were not persecuted by your fathers? They have even killed those who have prophesied of the coming of the Righteous, of whom you have now become traitors and murderers, you who have received the law at the disposal of angels, but have not kept it.”
I once saw the images of violence using stone-throwing orthodox Jews on TV. With their black hats,
their caps, their black coats and their rebellious behavior, they did not exactly give the impression
of being at peace with God. Clearly, nothing had changed for the better since the days and death of Stephen.
And that will never happen. Unless they too want to accept the gospel of Jesus and will sit down
with the Gentiles who, since the preaching of the Gospel by the (Jewish!) Apostles, have bowed their knees
to their Creator. Because there is no other way.
I just mentioned the religiously tinted cap. I read about this on wikipedia.org: the wearing of the cap
is a sign of reverence for God. Reverence for God? What should we imagine? Which God would they mean by
that? Oh, of course. The prophet Isaiah wrote a few things about this “reverence.” Long before
Jesus' death on the cross. Very far before that. For in Isaiah 29:13-14 I read:
“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near [me] with their mouth, and with their
lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by
the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, [even]
a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise [men] shall perish, and the understanding
of their prudent [men] shall be hid.” By the way, what did Stephen say again some time after
Jesus' death on the cross, against those gnashed Jews? There we go again: “You who received the
law at the disposal of angels, but did not keep it.” And these people must therefore be considered
respectful? Both those Jews in Stephen's days and those Jews who are throwing stones at modern authorities
today know nothing of respect for the supreme God. Those ridiculous caps don't change anything
about that. An acquired commandment from people. It is no more than that!
It gets worse. During the so-called execution of Jesus (mentioned above), in which all known rules (received from God) concerning the administration of justice in Israël were thrown overboard, the bewildered Roman Pontius Pilate faced a crowd who, as far as frenzy is concerned, shaded all popular uprisings known to him. His attempts to save Jesus from this seething crowd only provoked even more anger among the raging Jews. The truth is that Satan took the chance to deal with his Creator(!). That is why Satan had called upon all available auxiliary troops from the realm of darkness to deal with that Jesus of Nazareth. However, that became the biggest miscalculation ever. Satan and his retinue, the stupid fools, bite the dust. We read about it in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8: “Yet we speak wisdom to those who are ripe for it, a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, whose power is destroyed, but what we speak as a mystery is the hidden wisdom of God, which God has (for all) predestined to our glory. And none of the rulers of this age has known of her, for if they had known of her, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” And so they did, those dorks. And must now admit, grittingly, that Satan and his kingdom have thereby sealed their own demise.
Because of that concentration of evil spirits, the spiritual climate there in Jerusalem must have been unimaginably demonic during the execution of Jesus. That was clearly noticeable in the seething crowd. So clear even that the hardened Pilate was completely bewildered. In that climate of hatred and revenge, he no longer dared to refuse the demands of that furious and dancing crowd. Because under the influence of the huge hordes of evil spirits who had gathered in Jerusalem, they had no trouble cursing themselves. Their desire for revenge, once arrived at that low point, had taken appalling dimensions. We read in Matthew 27:25: “And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us and on our children!” Something happened here that would prove irrevocable in the spiritual world. The stubborn people of Israël, who had never done much else since the exodus from Egypt to grieve their God with their many, many sins and their opposition to God's commandments and statutes, that people called a curse on themselves. A curse that has never been broken since. Such a collective curse, proclaimed by so many mouths, cannot be reversed. Unless the whole people would turn to their Creator. However, the Bible teaches us that this never happened. And it will never happen. I studied the fierce resistance of the current Orthodox Jews against our Messiah. Nothing has changed for the better since Stephen's death. Of course, Jews can still repent, so that the converted Jew in question can come out of that curse. Only by the sincere belief in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on Calvary is every curse broken from the realm of Satan. By believing in the shed blood of Jesus, that proves to the Father that Jesus was obedient to death. And that thereby the requirement of the Father is met. There is no other way out for all who live under a curse!!
And the sorrow of God. As a Creator He created an earth of which we read in Genesis 1:31: “it was very good.” And which is then thoroughly led into destruction. The same destroyer, with his “climate hype” in our days, is trying to set himself up as the savior of “mother earth.” And our Creator Himself is not allowed to participate. Because.... after all, He does not exist at all, is the remarkably predictable conviction. Instead, the Gaia religion is now emerging in our time. The religion of “mother earth”, borrowed from Greek mythology, is forced upon us by the occultists of this world but, like all other false religions, eventually it will be razed to the ground. For even this stupid deception will come to an end. After all that Jesus has done to break the curse of sin over this world, God's patience with all those rebels will see its end. In verse 27 of Luke 19, Jesus Himself has the last word when He will say: “But those enemies of mine who did not want me to become king over them, bring them here and slaughter them before my eyes!!” In Matthew 13:41-42 it is described as follows: “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather from his kingdom all that entice into sin, and them that commit iniquity, and they shall cast them into the fiery furnace; there will be weeping and gnashing teeth.” Gnashing teeth of regret, not of repentance! Because there is no remorse in that fiery oven.
The alleged current climate hype is also a hoax, in which many evidence demonstrating the inequality of the environmental prophets are kept out of the news. If it is not CO2 that would endanger our survival, it is said that there would be a surplus of nitrogen as a threatening “climate disaster” above our heads. However, it is sinful man who has made a mess of it and now thinks he can use his own failure to raise himself as the solution to this imminent “climate disaster”. “We can resolve that ourselves”, is the current opinion, we do not need God for that. But.... man himself is the only real disaster in this world. With all this stupid deception, lost humanity will only make an even bigger mess out of it. No.... then our Creator has an infinitely better plan. So that the separation between God and people will not last forever, He caused death to enter. Death is therefore not an end but the transition to a new beginning. In Romans 8:20-21 we read: “For creation is subject to fruitlessness, not voluntarily, but for (the will of) Him who has subjected it to it, in hope, however, because creation itself will be freed from service to transience to the freedom of glory of the children of God.”
But.... Satan would not be Satan if he had not been out for revenge immediately after his defeat at Calvary. Because he was defeated! Jesus had escaped him and even descended into the realm of the dead immediately after His death. Invaded into the domain of Satan. Not as a prey for the evil spirits, such as some very suspicious American evangelical charlatans (with their mega “ministries”) have proclaimed, but as the victor of the battle of Calvary. From the realm of the dead, Jesus took the righteous who died in the Old Testament period such as Enoch, Noah, Daniël, Job, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and no doubt many, many others. They had no access to the Father and to heaven before Jesus' death. And that is why they stayed in a secluded part of the realm of the dead. A situation described by Jesus in His parable of the “rich” man and poor Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. After Calvary, the situation is now for Satan that his terrible fate has been sealed and he no longer can escape God's burning wrath. Furthermore, Jesus had received the power from the Father to reestablish the Kingdom of God on earth after Satan in the Garden of Eden subjected man to himself (for man disobeyed God) and then established his own kingdom on earth. Then God intervened, and as a punishment for man's disobedience, eternal life was taken away from him, and man was thereby subjected to fruitlessness, as has been stated above. In the hope, however, that creation would again be freed from service to transience. So death was the way out of the body of sin into eternal life. After His victory over Calvary, Jesus was the way back to eternal life and to the Father of life, which He told us in John. 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
The message that Jesus left to His disciples was therefore directed:
The words of the apostle Paul from Romans 8 that you were able to read in the foregoing are not yet complete. Because including the preceding verse 19 we read in Romans 8:19-21: “For with eager desire the creation waits for the sons of God to be revealed . For creation is subject to fruitlessness, not voluntarily, but for (the will of) Him who has subjected it to it, in hope, however, because creation itself will be freed from service to transience to the freedom of glory of the children of God.” Until all this has become reality, Jesus, as the implementer of this plan, has received all power from the Father. And every disciple of Jesus who, with his sanctification, takes seriousness against Satan, who goes wildly to stop this plan of the Father. That is why the apostle Peter described this evolving struggle in 1 Peter 5: 8. And made clear who our real enemy is: “Become sober and vigilant. Your adversary, the devil, goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he will devour.”
As for that revenge of Satan: since the disciples of Jesus made the gospel of the Kingdom of God known to the world, Satan and his evil spirits have been panicked as idiots to sabotage this work of God. In the book of Revelation the second horse and its rider in particular was the first to attack the church of God. This rider on the red horse is also remarkably active in our time. Responsible for the spiritual slaughter of believers, he uses false teachings. In other words: doctrines of devils. And if there is anything in the gospel of the Kingdom of God that Satan is only too happy to fight by fire and sword, then that is the message about the sons of God. He fears that future army with great fear. I know from experience that Satan is very good at coming up with a replacement “gospel”.
This surrogate gospel of Satan has meanwhile invaded Christianity almost everywhere. Because what do we hear today almost everywhere where people pay attention to the Kingdom of God? Exactly. Satan and his angels, always busy with death as they are, have dug up a corpse. A corpse in which once stood a stone temple and in which a veil hung between the holy and the holy of the holy. A veil that God Himself tore from top to bottom at the time of Jesus' death on the cross and with which He Himself made a definitive end to the spiritually completely bankrupt people of Israël. The time of the shadows was over. The apostle Paul writes about this in Colossians 2:16-17: “Then let no one continue to judge you with regard to food and drink or with regard to a feast day, new moon or Sabbath, things that are merely a shadow of what was to come, while the reality is Christ Himself.” Because now the real work had begun. Finally. If Christ is the reality, why would one return to the era of the shadows?
God dealt with that period when that rebellious, harsh and always hostile people of Israël hung like a log on His leg. And of which the prophet Isaiah prophesied centuries before in Isaiah 10:20-23: “And it shall come to pass that the rest of Israël and that which is escaped from Jacob's house shall no longer lean upon him that smote them, but will lean in truth upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israël. A remnant will convert , the rest of Jacob, to the strong God. For though your people were, O Israël, like the sand of the sea, a remnant will repent; extermination is firmly decided, overflowing with justice. Yes, an extermination that is determined. The Lord, the Lord of Hosts, performs this in the midst of all the earth.” Abraham once looked up at the sky and saw a host of stars, and God promised him an offspring, numerous as the stars in the night sky. However, Isaiah spoke only of a remnant who “would reach the finish line.” The vast majority of Abraham's offspring are the converted Gentiles, the spiritual offspring of Abraham. In Hebrews 11:10 we therefore read about Abraham: “for he expected the city with foundations, of which God is the designer and builder.” Abraham already saw in faith the spiritual Jerusalem and the spiritual Israël.
That spiritual Israël (much hated by masses of devout people) will consist of the true believers, of whom Jesus said in John 4 to the Samaritan woman: “For God seeks such worshipers.” The apostle Paul wrote about Abraham in Romans 4:16-18: “Therefore it is (all) by faith, that it should be by grace, and therefore the promise should apply to all posterity, not only to those from the law, but also to those from the faith of Abraham , who is the father of us all, as it is written, I have made you a father of many nations, before the God in whom he believed, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth notness into being. And he has believed hope against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, according to what was said, So shall your posterity be.”
Now creation is still subject to death and transience. The only way by which creation can be freed from it is the commitment of the sons of God. Those sons of God (called the sons of your people in the book of Daniel) are the disciples of Jesus from all nations.
Years later the congregation in Jerusalem had to become aware of this, after they had had a strong discussion and after having listened to the travel account of Paul and Barnabas, they, through the apostle James in Acts 15:13b-18 were called to order: “Men, brothers, listen to me! Simeon has explained how, from the outset, God has been keen to gather a people from among the Gentiles on his behalf. And this agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written: After this I will return and build up the decayed hut of David, and what has collapsed thereof I will rebuild, and I will raise it up again, that the rest of the people may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles over whom my name is called, says the Lord, who does these things that are known for ever.” James quoted in this regard the prophet Amos who prophesied this in Amos 9:11-12. While the prophet just before that, in Amos 9:8-10, predicted that the people of Israël would first be scattered among the nations (which happened years later through the armies of Assur and Babel) but then would be restored again. The Apostle James reminded that restoration and reconstruction to remind those present in Jerusalem that it was always God's intention that the Gentiles also participate in eternal salvation. For that is precisely why God allowed part of the people to return from exile so that all the prophecies that foretold that the Messiah would be born of this people could still be fulfilled!! And that is precisely what the prophet Isaiah was referring to when he announced the coming of the Messiah in Isaiah 11:1-4: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.”
The family tree of Jesse was finally cut down by God during the Babylonian exile. The new rod that would then emerge from the cut-off stem was the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This cut-off stem of Jesse (the ancient people of Israël and the royal house of David) had no other function than to produce just that new rod. This new branch, the Messiah, would establish a new Kingdom on earth, the Kingdom of God, which as the stone in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar will eventually destroy all other kingdoms. The promised Messiah was therefore the key to carrying out God's purpose. We already come across this purpose in the first book of the Bible where God promises Abraham in Genesis 17:4-5: “As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you will become the father of a multitude of nations; And you shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, because I have made you a father of a multitude of nations.” Paul reminds us of this in Galatians 3:6-9: “In the same way Abraham also believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. So you realize that those who are of faith are children of Abraham. And the Scripture, which before saw that God justifies the Gentiles by faith, has previously preached the gospel to Abraham: In you all nations will be blessed. Those who are of faith are thus blessed together with the faithful Abraham.” In other words, it has never been God's purpose to grant only one nation a special status, but to save all sinners in the world from eternal punishment and to make all those nations disciples of Jesus. The death and victory on Calvary of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, made this possible.
The apostle Paul recalled this last fact in Romans 9:24-29, after which he quoted the words of Isaiah: “And these are we whom he called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles, as he also says in Hosea: I will -not My people- call: My people, and the non-beloved: beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said unto them, Thou art not my people, there shall they be called the sons of the living God. And Isaiah exclaims concerning Israël: Though the number of the children of Israël is like the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved; for what He has spoken, the Lord will do on the earth, fully and quickly. And as Isaiah had said before: If the Lord Sebaot had left us no seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made equal to Gomorrah.” The clearly visible remains of Sodom, Gomorrah and surrounding cities are still to be found around the Dead Sea.... As a proof of God's wrath over the disobedience of those wicked people at the time. Now that the shovel is still in the (dead) soil: digging a little further, we come across something that nowadays almost no mortal is talking about.
Not so strange by the way: Satan, the manipulator, is a master in making people busy with things other than God's intentions. What are we talking about in this case? This: it was the apostate King Solomon who was the cause of the fall of Israël as God's people. Exactly as God had already told King Solomon in 1 Kings 9:6-9. The facts are that King Solomon later on in his life became an apostate, followed the idols of his many wives, and thereby sealed the end of his people. He caused God to drop the people of Israël for good after our Savior had been obedient to the dead on the cross. Hence, God Himself tore up the veil in the temple at the time of Jesus' death. The period of the stone temple and the time of the shadows were over for good. However, the “spiritual descendants” of the apostate Solomon (I mean the occultists in this world) have created a new “Israël” against God's will. A kind of “Israël” with whom they have completely different plans than that they have made clear to blindfolded Christianity. It has struck me, therefore, that almost no mortal being is talking about that dramatic downfall of King Solomon!! And now we are not going to claim that God did not mean it that way... As if He is going to say something like this in our time: “Sorry guys, that's not what I meant! You shouldn't take it that seriously, of course I was angry with the apostate Solomon for a moment, but that is a thing of the past.... so forget it. You have to take what I said back then with a grain of salt.” In Matthew 5:37 Jesus once said: “Let the yes that you say be yes, and the no, no; what goes beyond that is from the devil.” Would the holy God Himself sin against this?
Therefore, the corpse that Satan and his evil spirits have dug up consists of the remains of the people from which Jesus (as regards his body) originated. Because what is the result of the accompanying surrogate gospel? In the first place: one has been seized by a people which doesn't have any special value for the eternal Kingdom of God since our Savior originated from them. Whereby, in the second place, (and there he comes!) the gospel about the sons of God no longer gets attention and a very large part of the children of God in this world hear nothing about Gods plan of redemption for this world. Just as Satan intended. His repeated trick is to divert attention from something that is a danger to his empire and then to engage the misguided people with an “alternative.”
That alternative means, among other things, that masses of “end-time prophets” are fantasizing about a final battle that should take place somewhere in the Middle East. In a valley with the name Armageddon. Yes, according to these storytellers, we will have to experience that the “enemies of Israël” are beaten with swords and sticks, possibly with an atomic bomb. Or more. Maybe even a hydrogen bomb for the toughest guys in the field. And otherwise, as a reserve, don't we just go back to the classic bow and arrow? That also worked in the Bible book of Revelation, so why not try..... What kind of struggle are we actually talking about? What is the real struggle about what the Bible refers to? The Gospel sheds a very clear light on this. Paul, for example, knew from much experience what he was talking about. His statements leave nothing to be desired for clarity. That clarity is even so alarming that the spiritually blind end-time prophets must get a nervous breakdown. You probably felt him coming, because here are some of Paul's hits.
First of all 2 Corinthians 10:3-6: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not go to war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” And then another direct hit. Here it comes: in Ephesians 6:12 the apostel Paul writes: “for we are not wrestling with blood and flesh, but with the authorities, against the powers, against the rulers of this darkness, against the evil spirits in the heavenly realms.” A possible reaction might be: “No, it is not true. Can this really be found? Also in my Bible?” Well, if you have not yet been taken in by one of the current biblical fakes: it is really there!! And for a long time already. Jesus' gospel about the sons of God is about the spiritual struggle against the governments in the heavenly places. We have to fight there and nowhere else!! Nowhere else!! Because that is what the Bible is about. The eternal Kingdom of God is not served with a piece of “robbed land” somewhere in the Middle East. Our Creator is not really enthusiastic because of a piece of that dried-up desert patched with some technical tricks. After Calvary, the whole world belongs to Him again. And that whole world will become His domain again! The sons of God cooperate in this and that is their goal. That is what the gospel of the Kingdom of God is all about!
Anyway, it all comes down to this: that the rider on the red horse (mentioned in Revelation, chapter 6) has already defeated his tens of thousands. Just like this world embraces its evolutionary fairy tale to appease the dreamers, so “Christianity” has its Israël myth. Received from no one less than that dirty bastard on his red horse. Paul put that into words in 1 Timothy 4:1-2: “But the Spirit emphatically says that in later times some will fall away from the faith by following false spirits and the teachings of evil spirits through the hypocrisy of lies speakers branded in their own conscience.” That is clearly explained by Paul. So what do we say then?? Thank you, Paul!
If we summarize the foregoing briefly, it comes down to the fact that through the sabotage actions of Satan and his retinue, spiritually blind Christianity almost completely ignores the gospel about the sons of God. And instead embraces an excavated corpse. You might expect the evangelical churches to be closer to the fire. That is true indeed. However, it is the wrong fire anyway. Indeed, a number of years ago a New Age author predicted (or announced?) That the evangelical churches would be the most important instrument to bring about the new world order. However, we have no good to expect from that new world disorder. But after all, all these very temporary phenomena will only prove to be convulsions of a Satan who resists his own downfall in vain. He trembles for the coming sons of God!
If we finally summarize the drama of humanity doomed to fruitlessness plus God's rescue plan from that hopeless situation, then it comes down to:
Good question (concerning the last point), who would say no to this??
Meanwhile, we now live in the midst of a generation that, accustomed to and spoiled by current prosperity, is addicted to possession, thanks in part to the material blessings of technology. And a generation that, last but not least, has been so far brainwashed by modern education that it dares (as it says itself) to dismiss those “Medieval ideas” (about a God to whom we owe our existence) as outdated ideas. Because: “We now know better!” With the result that I already saw at least two churches being demolished in my own place of residence, due to the exodus. And.... so that I had to listen to a weak story on my (sometimes not working) car radio about those “higher educated” in the Netherlands who have now threw our Creator in the garbage. The hypocrites. No, then privat John (or whatever his name is): he knows definitely better during wartime. Hence the expression that you won't find atheists in trenches. Because sitting in your trench, with the high-explosive grenades whistling past you, you really know who you need to go to for help.... Even those hypocritical “highly educated” people in the Netherlands know! As we have already seen, the ancient people of Israël once again fell into apostasy and turned their back on God again. And it certainly doesn't get any better. For Jesus spoke a predictive parable about the end-time in Luke 19:14 in which we can read: “But his citizens hated him and sent him an envoy with the message: We do not want this man to become king over us.” That rejected king is Jesus Christ....
Do all these lost sinners have an excuse? I'm sure they have not at all. In John 16:7-11, Jesus promises the Comforter to His disciples. Some of His duties are put into words by Jesus in that passage of the Bible. We read: “But I tell you the truth: It is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Comforter cannot come to you, but if I go I will send Him to you. And when He comes, He will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” Every person on this globe who has a normal mind and who can consult his conscience is convinced of the truth by God's Holy Spirit. The drama is that the vast majority (who is always in evil according to Exodus 23:2) does not want to be convinced. Whoever has that on his conscience has committed sin against the Holy Spirit and has lost eternal life forever. Then the grief and deep, deep disappointment of the Creator about the hostility of the sinner concerned will turn into eternal wrath. What remains then? Hebrews 10:27 let his light shine on it: “....but a terrible view of the judgment and the fierceness of a fire that will consume the rebellious.”
Returning to the parable cited in Luke 19:14, where the king (= Jesus) is told: “We do not want this man to become king over us”. Because after His return His grim answer on all these rebels is: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring them here and slay them before my eyes.” Otherwise articulated in Hebrews 10:31: “It is terrible to fall into the hands of the living God!”
Another good question: who would like that??